Finding Ballyhara
by PrincessAlica
Summary: ONe of three ficathon attempts. Rhett searches for Scarlett in Ireland after the Drogheda horse fair.... and Ballyhara yeah, not in County Meath.
1. Chapter 1

"It seems to me that the best relationships, the ones that last, are  
frequently the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look  
at the person and you see something more than you did the night before. Like a  
switch has been flicked somewhere. And the person who was just a friend is  
suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with."

He was amazed at what he had seen today. He had never expected Scarlett, his little xenophobe, to be here in Ireland of all places, even if it was the land of her ancestors. He had assumed that she was hiding somewhere in Georgia, somewhere familiar, not here in a place that she had only heard stories of from her blustering father. Perhaps he should track her down, see how she had been. This one change alone was enough to intrigue him. And she had always intrigued him from the first moment that he had witnessed her doling out her charm on the hapless and helpless swains of Clayton County.

He punched the pillow and made a hollow for his head, feeling that slight feeling of triumph as some of his frustration pushed the seams of the pillow to their limit as he pondered how he should go about finding her. It couldn't take that much effort surely. He couldn't imagine Scarlett living a simple and discreet enough life to hide in any place for long, let alone in this country that was a den of poverty. Yes , Scarlett was one who believed in ostentation and living a lavish life. She would be easy to track down.

He fell asleep imagining what kind of home that she was now living in, imaging it to be more grandiose and obnoxiously garish that even the Peachtree street house had been. The mental image that monstrosity made his eyes burn and he snorted as he imagined what his money and her questionable tastes had fashioned. A house, mansion, or even castle that overdone would hurt anyone's eyes. He snickered as he thought of someone mistakenly assuming that such house was in fact a whore house. He could picture Scarlett's again flaming at the very insinuation. Yes, he did need to look her up while he was here if for no other reason than to assuage his curiosity.

Even the next morning he was still snickering as he remembered her outlandish behavior of the previous day. Scarlett never ceased to amuse him. Apparently some things never changed. She was always doing something more bizarre and unexpected. He missed that. The bed was quiet this morning, it felt odd to be in a bed alone. He had never spent too many nights without a warm body beside him. And yet since Scarlett had disappeared no matter who was in the bed with him, it felt wrong and he might as well have been alone. His marriage to Anne had lasted for such a short time that it might very well have never happened. He was certain that Rosemary regretted finding the letter that informed him that the divorce had in fact not happened. The marriage to Anne was annulled, and Anne had decided to become a nun.

All of his hard work to earn back his good name had been in vain. He was a pariah once again. His mother and perhaps Sally Brewton were the only ones who would consider allowing them in their homes. How was he supposed to know that the divorce certificate had been a fabrication. It had looked official enough. But just the same an annulled marriage had ruined Anne. No one would have considered marrying her after that scandal. Ireland had been a welcome haven away from the gossip and the twittering that he had endured.

After readying for the day, he began to ask around, trying to find the information that he knew couldn't be that difficult to uncover. All he needed to do was ask about the person who was currently causing the most disruption and uproar and he would find her. He wondered if she would be pleased to see him, wondered if she would be receptive of the man who apparently was still her husband, though unbeknown to her.

He finally found his answer to the question of her whereabouts when one of the maids began rattling off about the O'Hara, the beautiful American who had built her own town. He could barely contain his laughter. Leave it to Scarlett, only his ex-wife, no wife, would go so far as to buy her own town. That sounded just about the right level of extravagance to suit her. He wondered if she had gone so far as to decorate the entire town or if she had only decorated the largest place in town as her own, gilt and draped in red velvet no doubt.

The maid told him of Ballyhara and gave him vague directions to find it, and he set off towards the interior towards a small town that hadn't even existed before Scarlett left Charleston after their unfortunate boating accident. Well, that wasn't quite true. It had been a ghost town if the girl was hoped to be believed. And he did hope that he could believe at least part of what she said since it was her directions that sent him off to destinations unknown. The stories that she relayed were quite grand and almost impossible to be believed.

The horse that he had borrowed from John Moreland was a well trained animal that oozed strength and vitality. If any animal would be ready to make this trek, this one would. There was an instant connection and almost immediately, Rhett was riding the beast as if he and the creature were one. And as he ride he couldn't help but think about all of the moments of his life with Scarlett. His life spread before him in brilliant color against the emerald hills undulating forward.

He imagined that she would have brought some of her more garish dresses with her. Certainly she hadn't been wearing one at the horse fair, but that was to be expected. She couldn't exactly wear something with feathers to buy a horse. Of course it couldn't be forgotten that she was pretending to be a widow.

When he made his way through another small village, he decided that he should take the time to stop and see if he was indeed traveling in the right direction. He swiftly and fluidly swung down from the borrowed animal and stopped a small man as he crossed the road.

"Sir," Rhett said briskly, "is this the quickest path to Ballyhara?"

The man gave him a particularly blank look. "I don't be understanding why you'd wanna go there."

"My wife, she lives there, owns the town apparently."

"She be your own wife and ye not be knowing where she is and what she owns?" The man countered.

"Sir, I have it on good authority that she is now called the O'Hara, and of our personal matters you need not take any mind."

"Well, be ye wanting the O'Hara or Castle Ballyhara?"

Rhett was growing impatient with the man, "Just tell me where Ballyhara castle is."

"Its a wee bit of Mullarkey."

"Malarky?" Rhett questioned. "So you're just pulling my leg?"

The man bristled at his comment. "I dinna touch you. I don't be knowing what it be your talking about. I was just a telling you that Castle Ballyhara be part of the Mullarkey estate."

"Thank you. I look forward to finding my wifes family there."

"Well I doubt that ye'll be finding much of anyone there. The O'Hara's haven't a lived there for many a years. Castle Ballyhara was once a grand castle I'd imagine, but ye'll be finding nothing other than wee bugs and spiders there in the rubble. No one ha lived there in as long as I've lived."

"But the girl that I talked to said that there was an American woman living in Ballyhara and calling herself the O'Hara."

"Well, she won't be living in Ballyhara Castle. I'd wager that she might be living over near Trim. That where be the only O'Hara clan that I be knowing lives." The man said with a smile.

"Well, fine. Then where is Trim?" Rhett replied coolly.

"Ach. It be back quite a piece from where you've already come."

Rhett huffed for a moment, angry that he had already lost precious time. "Could you be so kind as to tell me specifically how to get back to Trim, I would be much obliged."

The man's round face colored as he gave animated directions which were tedious to understand at best. But Rhett thanked him and turned and rode back in the direction that he had come from all the while muttering under his breath "it would be easier to catch one of their fabled leprechauns than to understand all of their gibberish".

It was nearly dark before he found himself in the town that locals identified as Trim. And none of the locals were particularly helpful, thinking that he was English. By the time he had obtained directions, the sun had completely set and there was distinctive chill in the air. But he would find her. He would find Scarlett. After all that he had already undergone to try and find her, he wasn't stopping now. And besides his body was not as young as it had once been. He wouldn't mind a warm bed with a warm body in it as well.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Notes: Thanks for all of your reviews! This story may be a little goofy and a little odd, and not even be consistently sunny and funny, but I tried to make it lighthearted. I let the chapter write itself while I was half asleep, so if this doesn't seem like my normal writing it isn't. I think that I write tragedy best. This chapter includes the only salvageable snippet from my first attempt at the prompt. I hope that you are at least slightly amused by this, and I really hope to get back to regularly updating my other stories. Life is settling down, perhaps not as I hoped, but I am surviving and I am going to be just fine. Thanks again everyone!_

But riding out for this illusive Ballyhara for the even more illusive Scarlett O'Hara Butler in the dark had not been his best decision. Not that his journey to come near it had been remotely simple, but riding through unfamiliar territory in the pitch black of night had not been in his best interest. There was not even a hint of moonlight to guide him, and after riding for several hours he was convinced that he was irrevocably lost.

What was the point in finding Scarlett, anyway? She didn't really love him, and he no longer loved her. They were simply tied together because South Carolina was a state set against the thought of divorce, and they were making it impossible for him. And now there was no chance because they had gone from rarely issuing divorces to not permitting them at all. What was the point of staying in a marriage that was hardly even in name even?

Scarlett had proclaimed her love, proclaimed it numerous times, but he could not believe her. She was only chasing that which she could no longer have. She only truly loved herself. Was her charade of being a widow nothing other than more proof to the fact?

She certainly didn't love her children. No, they were sequestered out at Tara as they had been since before she had come to Charleston. No mother who loved her children would leave them there like that. Of course they had both seemed happy the last time that he had seen them. They were flourishing without Scarlett, and yet he was withering.

He was too old for this. He shouldn't be traipsing through the countryside trying to find her. And yet he was. That woman, that vixen had driven him to do many things that he shouldn't have done, and wouldn't have done for anyone else. God help him, he had loved her.

Falling in love with her had not happened as many had supposed. His love was not born on the final day of the Antebellum south, nor was it born in the swirling spell binding music of the Atlanta bazaar. It was not to say that he had not been intrigued with her then, for he had been. She was a creature of like no other. And he had been drawn to immediately, but it had not been love. He had never really believed in love. And then suddenly he found himself drowning, spiraling downwards as if being pulled under by a vicious undertow.

He remembered that day clearly, the day that she had finally stolen his heart. It had been a sunny April day, sunshine spilling lazily onto the ground like melted butter. It was strange that such a day was the one that caused him to finally realize and name those feelings that had been flaring and flickering for longer than he cared to admit.

But she was vulnerable and miserable, and he was her only confidant. As she drove to the mills and from the mills they spent many hours of time together discussing whatever it was that was on her mind at the time. There was an ease and a comfort to their chatter that was something that Rhett had never experienced with anyone else before. For the first time since he had been kicked out of his family at the age of twenty did he feel a connection that seemed to be real and lasting.

And he longed as he had watched her body begin to swell and grow that the child that she was carrying was his. He knew that she liked to pretend that no one knew her condition, that the lap robe that was smothering herself under was disguising the changed nature had wrought on her body.

And she had needed him. Her face would light when she saw him, and there was something magical about that time. He had known that their times together could only last so long, that he would only be allowed to watch her grow so much before her husband, and damn, it had angered him that the man was not himself, her husband the lily livered Frank Kennedy would lock her in the house and hide her away until after the child had come into the world. It sickened him to think of Frank touching her. But it was in those days when she had been so brave and so strong, and needed him more than anyone had ever needed him that he had fallen. He had fallen head over heels for her. It was a lost cause.

He was shaken from his reverie as his horse stumbled over loose rocks on the ground, and he realized that he had come to a river. Perhaps that village people hadn't been completely daft. The blacksmith had mentioned that once he found the river that he close.

He peered out into the darkness, and yet he still could not see even the slightest sliver of light. He could be ready to fall off of the end of the world for all that he knew. Finding Scarlett certainly wasn't easiest task that he had ever undertaken. But since that he had started it he might as well see it to completion.

He swung down from the horse. The animal obviously needed a rest. He had ridden long and hard today, and it was not the animals fault that he had gotten lost. He wondered for a moment what had possessed him to stop and ask someone for directions. He had navigated by the stars before, of course these infernal clouds blocked the constellations from his site, leaving him no way to find his bearing. "This day couldn't get worse" he muttered to himself.

But his foot found a slippery spot on the rock and he found himself madly beating the air to right himself. But it was to no avail, and he landed hard. A blindly light splintered forth as his head made impact with the ground. He moaned in pain. His head was already throbbing, and his trousers and shoes were now saturated thoroughly. He had been wrong. The day had gotten worse.

A movement in the bushes caught his attention, and he struggled to rise to make out what it was before him. A strange little creature was peering up at him. "Ye'll not be finding your missus there in the water. Yeah might want to rise up."

"Are you a leprechaun?" Rhett quizzed.

"That I be. But I'm not supposed to speak to humans, like you be." The little green man replied.

"Well, its not me that you should be worried about. I'm not that interested in your pot of Gold. It's my wife that should worry you. There is not amount of gold that can satiate her thirst." Rhett countered.

"Perhaps it is that your missus has changed since you last saw her. Perhaps she isn't the same person she was after that war."

"How do you know all of this? This has got to be my imagination."

"Well, if it is then who be I?"

"I have no answer for that other than me name, Red."

Rhett rubbed his forehead "this was ridiculous".

"I've imagined this all, or I have finally lost my mind."

"Perhaps you've only hit you head and your heart be telling you what you mind wont hear any other way."

"And just what would that be?" He asked with malice and frustration tinging his tone.

"That you still be loving your wife, and ye be knowing that she was and probably is in love with you."

"Is there anything else?"

""Perhaps you should consider that that event in Charleston changed things for the both of ye." He answered enigmatically.

The light spun round him again, and he was surprised when he opened his eyes to see that the sun was shining, and that it was being blocked by the face of a child. A small face was nose to nose with him. What on earth was going on?

"Cat! Kitty Cat! Momma needs you, darling!" A voice called from not too far away.

The child raised up as the voice cam closer and Rhett struggled to pull himself into a sitting position. AS he watched the child he was confused and amazed. It was as if he knew who this child was, and yet, he couldn't.

"Momma!" The child squealed at something over his shoulder. He could only assume that it was the child's mother.

"Kitty Cat! There you are baby."

He felt it. He would know that voice anywhere. But more that the voice, he could feel her presence, and he wondered if she felt it as well.

"Kitty Cat what have you...." Her voice fell off as he turned to face her.

"Momma... Momma?" The child's voice rose in confusion.

"Scarlett?" Rhett finally spoke.

"Rhett." She stammered. "How did you get here, and why are you sitting on the ground covered in mud?"

He blinked as his mind tried to piece together the situation. "Who was that child? Why was she calling you momma?"

Scarlett stared at him without speaking as Cat twisted in her arms to be let down. The child was not one that liked to be coddled and held constantly. She was too busy exploring for that.

"She has your eyes." He finally said. "She looks like Bonnie...." He stopped as if he realized what he had just said. "Just like Bonnie, except she has my complexion instead of yours. She is my child isn't she."

Scarlett still did not speak, but the proof in front of him was irrefutable. This was his child.

"In Charleston, after the boating accident?"

Scarlett nodded.

"And yet you have neglected to tell me of this child's existence for over 2 years? You had to have known you were pregnant before you left."

The shock left her face to be replaced by righteous indignation. "If you so happen to recall, you asked me to leave your mothers house immediately after the accident. How was I supposed to know? You should have considered that before you divorced me and left me with child and unmarried."

He was laughing. His anger was gone, replaced with laughter. This situation was too ridiculous to be believed. "We aren't divorced." He gasped as he tried to control himself. But the expression on her face and his exhaustion were making it impossible.

"What do you mean, you fool. I got the letter after I got here. I got the announcement that you had married Anne. Has something addled your brain? Would you stop laughing! This isn't funny. You show up after all of this time, after treating me horribly and now you are acting like a lunatic, laughing at me like... like... well I don't know what its like, but I don't like it so stop!"

"Someone was playing a dirty trick. You are still stuck with me." He said as he caught his breath and became more somber. "Poor Anne is a nun. And she wasn't even Catholic."

Scarlett frowned. "How do you become a nun if you aren't Catholic? Wait a minute, don't you dare try and side track me. Explain yourself. We are still married?"

He later couldn't explain what happened, not for all of the gold of that leprechaun that appeared before him, but suddenly he found his mouth was on hers. He was devouring her, as she attempted to devour him. Two years of absence was suddenly crashing over them, and for the moment everything else was forgotten. His kisses were fiery and searing and tasted of the salty tears that they were both crying.

"Momma. Momma!!!!!" A little voice called!

Rhett pulled away and reached down and swung Cat up into his arms. "Hello darling. I'm your daddy."

"Dadda?" she said as if tasting the word. "Dadda?" Then she reached out her arms and lunged for Scarlett. "Momma!"

Scarlett smiled triumphantly. "She prefers me."

"We'll see how long that lasts."

"This all seems too easy. I should be more furious. You should be more furious. Something isn't right."

"I am furious. But don't worry we might have changed in some ways, but I am still me and I would be shocked to learn that you aren't still you. We will fight. There is not question. And yet I think I finally understand just what I lost. And I'm not giving up now. And who says this is too easy? I nearly drowned, got lost and got visited by a wise leprechaun that I warned about you."

"Perhaps I should call for the doctor. Perhaps that blow to the head did more than just knock you out."

"SO show me Ballyhara. I've finally found it. And I've finally found home."

"Do you really think that Ballyhara will be home?" She asked.

"No, only as long as you are there and Cat... is that what you call her? Are there."

"Yes, I have been remiss. This is your daughter, Katie Colum O'Hara. She is a year and a half old."

"She looks like the both of us." He said as he watched the child tugging on a strand of Scarlett's loose gleaming hair. "Now tell me about the place where you are living...."

"Its almost like a Castle...."

"Did you decorate it?" He questioned with trepidation.

"No. I hired someone else to do that." She replied with a frown.

"Oh, thank heaven. It might be liveable after all."

"Are you implying that I have poor taste in furnishings?"

"No, I'm not implying it. I'll not mince words. Your taste in decorating looks more at place in a sporting house than a home."

She glared at him. "I only did it that way to make everyone else jealous."

"Well, the only one I know of that might be jealous would be Belle. I think that she would love to buy the house and enlarge her establishment."

"You skunk! You'd let her turn out house into a Bordello?"

"No, I wouldn't but I do love to see that fire rise in your eyes. I like to fight with you."

"And why is that?"

"Because its been a really long time since we have made up." She swatted at him with her free hand and led him along the path to the stables up to the main house. "Welcome home, Captain Butler. Welcome home."


End file.
